Longue Paume
Longe Paume is an outdoor version of the racket sport, jeu de paume. and is regarded as the ancestor of most racket sports, especially lawn tennis. It was once very popular, nowadays the sport is mostly played in the region of Picardy, France.
Longue Paume is played in an rectangular court, between two teams with two or six players on each team. The sport is played with a racket and a light plastic ball similar to a ping pong ball. Though the indoor version jeu de paume, has a net, longue paume is played without a net. Instead of a net, a rectangular neutral region between the two halves is used, where the ball is not allowed to bounce.
Each play starts with a serve, the serves have to land on the opponent's half of the court in full. The play continues with back and forth returns between the two teams. Balls are allowed to bounce in a team's court once before it is returned. Returns can be directly hit to the opponent’s court, or are allowed to bounce one in the team's own court before landing on the opponent’s court. Serves and returns are not allowed to fall in the neutral zone. Points are awarded to a team if the opponents are unable to return the ball back legally. The team with the most points wins the match.
Similar Sports
- Jeu de Paume — originally played with the hand, the precursor to real tennis and modern lawn tennis (essentially extinct)
- Lawn Tennis — a court sport using a stringed racket to hit a ball over a net
- Real Tennis —
Related Pages
- Longue Paume was a demonstration sport at the 1900 Summer Olympics.
- Complete list of sports
- The Encyclopedia of Sports
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